Olha Kotenko and her husband Volodymyr looked at the exhumation of their son’s body from an improvised grave in the backyard of their house. He was killed by Russian racists in Mala Rohan, Kharkiv region, on May 23, 2022.
Mon 13 June 2022:
Amnesty International has accused Russia of carrying out war crimes in Ukraine, saying attacks on the second largest city Kharkiv, many using banned cluster bombs, had killed hundreds of civilians.
“The repeated bombardments of residential neighbourhoods in Kharkiv are indiscriminate attacks which killed and injured hundreds of civilians, and as such constitute war crimes,” the rights group said on Monday in a report titled “Anyone can die at any time”.
“This is true both for the strikes carried out using cluster [munitions] as well as those conducted using other types of unguided rockets and unguided artillery shells,” it said.
“Anyone can die at any time…”
🚨 Published on Monday 13 June – a new @Amnesty report documenting indiscriminate attacks by Russian forces in #Kharkiv, #Ukraine 🚨
DM or email press@amnesty.org for embargoed details… pic.twitter.com/eO0foHkSPj
— Laurie Hanna (@LaurieHanna) June 10, 2022
Amnesty said it had uncovered proof in Kharkiv of the repeated use by Russian forces of 9N210 and 9N235 cluster bombs and scatterable landmines, all of which are banned under international conventions.
Cluster bombs disperse dozens of bomblets or grenades over hundreds of square meters as they detonate in mid-air (yards).
According to Amnesty International, scatterable land mines combine “the worst possible attributes of cluster munitions and antipersonnel land mines.”
The margin of error for unguided artillery projectiles is over 100 meters.
On the first day of the invasion, on February 24, Russian forces began attacking civilian districts of Kharkiv, according to the report “Anyone Can Die At Any Time.”
For two months, the “relentless” shelling continued, wreaking “wholesale destruction” on the city of 1.5 million.
“People have been killed in their homes and in the streets, in playgrounds and in cemeteries, while queueing for humanitarian aid, or shopping for food and medicine,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s senior crisis response adviser.
“The repeated use of widely banned cluster munitions is shocking, and a further indication of utter disregard for civilian lives.
“The Russian forces responsible for these horrific attacks must be held accountable.”
Amnesty International reviewed 41 Russian strikes that claimed the lives of at least 62 people and injured at least 196 others. Survivors, victims’ relatives, bystanders, and doctors were among the 160 people interviewed in Kharkiv over the course of two weeks in April and May.
Since the war began, Ukraine claims to have opened over 12,000 war crimes investigations.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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